The Clock Is Ticking For Dirty White Gold

Back in September I wrote about Dirty White Gold, a crowd-funded documentary about the cotton industry and how it abuses both the farmers that grow the crop and the land on which it grows. The film is into its final week of funding, and it still needs your help to get made.

At the time of writing, DWG has raised 85% of its target £18,000. This money is being used to match cash that's already been raised in a previous fund-raising round, which will attract other investors. Film-making is a tough, expensive business, even in the low-budget documentary field in which director Leah Borromeo moves.

This is a worthwhile enterprise, that shows just how broken the current model of cotton production is becoming. As you'll see in tomorrow's post, Indian farmers are turning away from organic cotton altogether, and farmers across the sub-continent are suffering as the notoriously tough to grow crop sucks away their resources, strips their fields of nutrients and ultimately leaves them with a debt that they can't pay. Suicides in the farming community have spiked over the past few years because of the shame associated with it.

Leah and her team need to raise a puny £2,750 in the next few days to meet their target and keep Dirty White Gold on the tracks. The Pier have already contributed. If this is a film you'd like to see, go ahead and drop them some cash.

Here's the trailer.


The Cotton Film : Dirty White Gold | Crowdfunding trailer from Leah Borromeo on Vimeo.

While we're at it, Leah has done a decently extensive interview with Ecouterre on the film and her reasons for making it. Well worth a read, but let me just quote her final statement, that I think goes to the heart of why Dirty White Gold is so important. She says:

I want to go into a store, buy a coat, and not have to think about whether anyone’s killed themselves in the making of it because a human morality is in every stitch.

Can't really say fairer than that, can you?

You can help to fund Dirty White Gold on their Sponsume page.

DIRTY WHITE GOLD ON SPONSUME